


There Can Never be a Winner

by Rhianona



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-07
Updated: 2009-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-08 22:05:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhianona/pseuds/Rhianona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'll never stop playing their games with each other. They don't know any other way to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Can Never be a Winner

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sticksnstrings challenge on IJ. Song used is "Head Games."

i&gt;Daylight, alright  
I don't know, I don't know if it's real  
Been a long night and something ain't right  
You won't show, you won't show how you feel

He didn't feel any surprise to turn and find Kara gone. "Looks like you win this round, Kara," he whispered, the wind taking his words from his mouth. He grimaced a bit. "Wish you hadn't let it go this far... wish _I_ hadn't let it." He waited, waited to see if she would return, even though he knew she wouldn't. They had both played their last hands and neither one of them had been willing to cave in just that little bit to concede the field.

Neither he nor Kara liked losing. Even if it made them miserable.

What fools they were!

_No time ever seems right  
To talk about the reasons why you and I fight  
It's high time to draw the line  
Put an end to this game before it's too late_

Kara never could explain the relationship she had with Lee. She could enumerate elements of it, but actually trying to unravel what they had took more patience and a level of self-reflection she just didn't have. They shared a certain amount of competitiveness, but that made sense considering they were both Viper pilots – and very good ones at that. Lee was more by-the-book but did have a streak of rebelliousness in him; few realized that he and not she was responsible for the incident at the Academy involving the General, his dog, his favorite top hat, and a reporter from _The Picon Star Tribune_.

There was the attraction – Lords did they just sizzle and zing around each other. Sometimes, when it was late at night and exhaustion pulled at her soul, she wondered what life would be like if she had met him before Zak. She loved Zak; he represented something precious and good and innocent. She just couldn't deny that the first time she met Lee her jaw had dropped open at the sight of him. They connected on a level only a few others had managed. No working towards some understanding; just instant realization that she _knew_ him at an instinctual level.

They each pushed each other; striving to win, unwilling to back down from whatever challenge – spoken or unspoken – they gave each other. She had had some of the best moments of her life with him. Sadly, she had also had some of the worst ones.

He was in her blood, always had been and she wouldn't have it any different.

_I daydream for hours it seems  
I keep thinkin' of you, yeah, thinkin' of you  
These daydreams, what do they mean?   
They keep haunting me, are they warning me? _

Lee sometimes thought it fitting that at the end of the worlds, he still had Kara. He hadn't seen her since Zak's funeral, an event that made him feel all sorts of guilt, if only for the inappropriate thoughts he held. Somehow, he didn't think it all that politic to have had fantasies of seducing one's dead brother's fiancee at his funeral. It seemed serendipitous that of all the Battlestars to survive the Cylon attack, it was the one his father commanded, the one Kara was stationed on. In those first chaotic days, he felt only numbness and the stark relief of knowing that no matter what else happened, he had Kara by his side. She lived and she protected his wing and generally did her best to make sure he didn't crack under the pressure.

They both played their games, upping the ante with each passing moment. Teasing and flirtatious looks passed between them; it didn't help that the only person he really felt comfortable with was Kara, leaving him more tight-lipped around others. Then Colonial Day had happened and she pulled out the big guns.

Once, when Zak still lived, he had met them at some fancy restaurant on Picon "just because" and Kara had worn a green sheath that had hugged her curves in all the right places. Zak had held her in a possessive manner, smug in the knowledge that she was coming home with him at the end of the night. She, in turn, had smiled and smirked that whole night and acted very affectionate with Zak. Lee had never envied his brother as much as he had that night.

He had known he was playing with fire when he teased her about wearing a dress but he also couldn't help himself. Instinctively, he knew that no one on _Galactica_ had ever seen Kara as anything but a Viper pilot. He wanted others to realize how much more she was, wanted to see a softer Kara, wanted to see if she could live up to his memories of her.

They did. She looked gorgeous in the blue dress she wore. He wondered from where she had scrounged it up. Maybe it had been sitting in her locker, a promise or reminder of a better day. He didn't have the courage to ask when he went up to her. From her expression, he knew she loved his gobsmacked expression.

None of that explained why he pulled back and let her go. He couldn't explain it – not that she had really asked. He watched as she put the hurt she felt away, burying it deep within her. He wanted to reach out but didn't.

And didn't that just make him a bastard?

_Daylight turns into night  
We try and find the answer but it's nowhere in sight  
It's always the same and you know who's to blame  
You know what I'm sayin', still we keep on playin'_

Running away to Caprica hadn't been the smartest idea Kara had ever had. Later, after she returned - complete with mystical arrow, a MIA Raptor pilot and a pregnant Cylon - she wondered if she would have listened to President Roslin if Lee hadn't punched her and called her a slut in the hanger. She hated to think that she was so driven by her emotions and feelings for him that she needed to prove herself by going on suicidal missions. Not that dying would prove anything except how frakked up she was.

She knew – even if she won't admit it aloud – that she shouldn't have survived Caprica. Sometimes, she thought the gods watched out for her because she couldn't explain why she survived half the crazy-assed plans with which she came up. She survived, and then Lee shocked her by kissing her and then, later still, confessing his love to her.

Kara really wanted to believe him. Except she couldn't. He said the words and she looked at him and she could tell he meant it. But... she freaked out and instead teased him. A part of her simply couldn't accept that he would love her. Not Kara Thrace, the acknowledged frak-up of the Fleet, the ace Viper pilot well on her way to being assigned to some forgotten and abandoned station in the middle of nowhere until the Cylons decided they wanted to finish what they had started a generation earlier. So she teased and he retreated and then things got all weird.

It hurt more than she had ever thought it would when Lee started seeing Dualla.

Complaining about Lee's attempts at a relationship seemed churlish. She met him because his brother dated her. Zak had always hung above them, a reminder of what they _shouldn't_ have or do because marrying the woman your dead brother wanted to marry might have been normal when the Twelve Tribes lived on Kobol, in these modern times, it wasn't considered appropriate. Kara liked that Lee was happy.

She just wished he could be happy with her.

_So near, so far away  
We pass each other by 'cause we don't know what to say  
It's so clear, I'm sorry to say  
But if you wanna win you gotta learn how to play_

They could never stop playing their games. Lee knew this. They pushed and prodded and pulled to see how far they could go before one of them snapped or pushed back fiercely. It happened on Colonial Day. It happened on New Caprica. Gods, it even happened after they had each married other people.

Sometimes, he wondered why they had allowed others to enter their game. Other days, he wondered what it would be like if Zak had lived and not died. Would Kara still engage him in these games? Would Zak have remained oblivious as he had seemed to be before he died? Lee really wished he knew what drew he and Kara together and why they couldn't just let each other go.

He wished he knew what he did to cause Kara to run after they had (finally!) given in and consummated what they had been heading to for years. He wanted to be surprised to see that she had run off and married Sam as soon as the light of day emerged, but he wasn't. His own choice to marry Dee hadn't been the smartest move he had ever made, but he had found himself caring for her more than he had ever thought he would. He knew that Kara loved Sam, just as he had loved Kara in a way that Lee didn't.

When Kara died, when he let her go, he knew a part of him had died with her. He should have felt relief that whatever it was they had was over, done with. He didn't. He missed her, missed her companionship or just even the knowledge that she was there, with her smart-ass comments and irreverent attitude. Some nights, he asked the Gods why they had taken their daughter to their embrace.

No one ever answered, which eventually made sense when she had returned to them.

Except, it turned out her return was only ever temporary. Kara Thrace died. She returned as a vessel, as a tool – only no one knew it. Not even her.

Kara led them to a burnt out Earth, and then she led them to a fresh new planet where they really could start over. By then, Dee had killed herself and Sam had been reduced to little more than an automaton. Lee had known she would leave. He didn't know how, but he knew she wasn't meant to stay.

They played their games. Each of them tried to win. Neither of them could acknowledge the prize. They pushed. They prodded. They pulled. And in the end, they each lost.

_Head games, always you and me, baby  
Head games, 'till I can't take it anymore  
Head games, instead of makin' love  
Head games, ooh_

Head games, always you and me, baby  
Head games, 'till I can't take it anymore, no more  
Head games, instead of makin' love, we play  
Head games

Head games, in the first degree  
Head games, yeah, always you and me  
Head games, why do you do it baby?   
Head games


End file.
